Tulsa Race Massacre Survivors Can Advance Their Reparations Lawsuit, Judge Rules – By Adam Klasfeld (Law and Crime) / May 3, 2022
Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre and their descendants can advance their reparations claims over one of the worst acts of anti-Black terrorism in U.S. history, an Oklahoma judge has ruled.
For 18 hours stretched over a course of two days, an armed mob of white vigilantes looted and set fire to a then-prosperous section of Oklahoma’s second largest city dubbed “Black Wall Street,” incinerating much of the Greenwood neighborhood, killing 300 people, and causing millions of dollars in damage. The Oklahoma Historical Society regards it as “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history,” one which received broader public consciousness last year amid its 100-year commemoration.
Attending that ceremony last summer with President Joe Biden were survivors who have been fighting for reparations in Tusla District Court, where a judge reportedly ruled on Monday that their case can proceed. Tulsa County District Court Judge Caroline Wall’s clerk told Law&Crime that a physical copy of the ruling has not yet been made available.
Civil rights attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of 107-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle and other survivors, did not immediately respond to a press inquiry.
